Canon TL QL Film Camera!

A buddy of mine has inherited an old Canon TL QL and has no use for it. He offered it to me for $50 with a 50mm lens. Im not sure what they are worth since I cant seem to find much info on them. Ive never used a manual film camera but would like to. Seems like a good oportunity to try it! My questions are...

What is a fair price?
What should I inspect before buying?
What issues should i look for?
Anything I need to know about the camera?

Thanks!

BlakeC wrote in post #17340722
A buddy of mine has inherited an old Canon TL QL and has no use for it. He offered it to me for $50 with a 50mm lens. Im not sure what they are worth since I cant seem to find much info on them. Ive never used a manual film camera but would like to. Seems like a good oportunity to try it! My questions are...

What is a fair price?
What should I inspect before buying?
What issues should i look for?
Anything I need to know about the camera?

Thanks!

That's a very fair price for a camera with no problems, especially for one that was the top of the line for Canon in 1966-1972 (ignoring the Canon Pellix)! I'm not in the used camera market so I don't really know the market value of the Canon FT QL specifically.

You should exercise the shutter at all speeds, to see if they all seem to work for the proper time interval (base your judgement simply on changing sound duration between shutter open and shutter close)
You should exercise the lens aperture from fully open to fully closed...set the shutter speed to perhaps 1/15 and look in the front of the lens and watch for sluggish aperture blades when closing down and opening up (indicative of need for lubrication or for oil cleaned off the aperture blades). Check the mirror lockup, and check the self timer (be sure the shutter is cocked already, when you check this!)
The camera has a meter which uses PX625 mercury battery, which is no longer made. You can use a Wein Air Cell, which has similar characteristics. Don't be surprised if the meter is not working; they often aren't in cameras of this vintage!

Wilt wrote in post #17340769
That's a very fair price for a camera with no problems, especially for one that was the top of the line for Canon in 1966-1972 (ignoring the Canon Pellix)! I'm not in the used camera market so I don't really know the market value of the Canon FT QL specifically.

You should exercise the shutter at all speeds, to see if they all seem to work for the proper time interval (base your judgement simply on changing sound duration between shutter open and shutter close)
You should exercise the lens aperture from fully open to fully closed...set the shutter speed to perhaps 1/15 and look in the front of the lens and watch for sluggish aperture blades when closing down and opening up (indicative of need for lubrication or for oil cleaned off the aperture blades). Check the mirror lockup, and check the self timer (be sure the shutter is cocked already, when you check this!)
The camera has a meter which uses PX625 mercury battery, which is no longer made. You can use a Wein Air Cell, which has similar characteristics. Don't be surprised if the meter is not working; they often aren't in cameras of this vintage!

Thanks! But this is the TL not FT...I guess its the dumbed down version of the FT?

Yeah the TL was the cheapened version:

• No self timer
  
• 1/500 top shutter speed
  

Wilt wrote in post #17340806
Yeah the TL was the cheapened version:

• No self timer
  
• 1/500 top shutter speed
  

I found a price on the web for the TL...Fair $70-80, Good $100-120

Thanks for the info! It looks mint but i will inspect it how you described. Ill update soon!

One thing to remember - the Canon FD lenses aren't compatible with Canon's EF-mount bodies (and vice versa). So you'll essentially be needing to buy new lenses for the TL-QL if you want more than the 50 f/1.8 (a very nice lens, BTW). Still, since there's pretty much no practical way to use FD lenses except on pre-EOS Canon bodies, they're very inexpensive.

Jon wrote in post #17342150
One thing to remember - the Canon FD lenses aren't compatible with Canon's EF-mount bodies (and vice versa). So you'll essentially be needing to buy new lenses for the TL-QL if you want more than the 50 f/1.8 (a very nice lens, BTW). Still, since there's pretty much no practical way to use FD lenses except on pre-EOS Canon bodies, they're very inexpensive.

There are adapters to use FD/FL lenses on an EOS camera, there also lens conversions for some of the better lenses, see here. http://www.ebay.com …Tubes&hash=item​2a396f447d

Also you can use old manual focus lenses on mirrorless cameras like the Sony alpha7/R/S and NEX/Alpha e-mount cameras or micro four thirds. Focus peaking make manual focus much easier on these cameras. Some of the older pre EF mount lenses go for pretty good money now.

I got it...the meter doesn't work. It seems to operate properly but we will see. I am just using my M as a meter. I guess we will see after the first roll!

Yes there are adapters, but either they deprive you of infinity focus or they function as low-grade teleconverters as well. Canon made one of reasonable quality, but it was designed to work only with the super-tele lenses. Not a viable solution unless you're hooked on gimmicks. And a lens conversion wouldn't let him use the converted lenses on his TL-QL any more, would it?

Jon wrote in post #17343386
Yes there are adapters, but either they deprive you of infinity focus or they function as low-grade teleconverters as well. Canon made one of reasonable quality, but it was designed to work only with the super-tele lenses. Not a viable solution unless you're hooked on gimmicks. And a lens conversion wouldn't let him use the converted lenses on his TL-QL any more, would it?

There are many excellent lenses in the FD/FL lens line ups that could still be used on an EOS camera by converting the mount, that insures you that if one were to buy it to play around with on that old TL-QL camera, those older lenses could still be of value for use on a newer EF mount camera. The process of converting the mount is also reversible on lenses I have as long as you don't throw away the old parts. As for the FD to EF adapters with a lens that works like a small Teleconverter, well you can't have everything and it is not always a bad thing. More options is not a bad thing here.

I tried one of those FD to EF adapters and the result was crap.

Tony-S wrote in post #17343671
I tried one of those FD to EF adapters and the result was crap.

I don't own one, I prefer the mount conversion option or using the lenses on a Sony mirrorless body, maybe someday canon will make a great mirrorless body that can compete with the Sony A7 series and also work well with our EF lenses too.

Perhaps you'd care to write a tutorial on how to do this easily, so changing between film and digital cameras with a restricted lens set doesn't become tedious.

Jon wrote in post #17344300
Perhaps you'd care to write a tutorial on how to do this easily, so changing between film and digital cameras with a restricted lens set doesn't become tedious.

No, I am done with this thread, you just want to argue. Bother someone else.

Jon wrote in post #17344300
Perhaps you'd care to write a tutorial on how to do this easily, so changing between film and digital cameras with a restricted lens set doesn't become tedious.

Switch all your bodies and lenses to use an F-mount?